


strikhedonia

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019 [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bittersweet Ending, Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Hindu Character, Hindu Tony Stark, Hinduism, Hopeful Ending, Indian Tony Stark, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 16:01:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20473721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Toni doesn’t have children, not in the strictest sense. She has the bots, she has JARVIS, but her uterus has always been a dry thing – people look down on her for it, she knows – a good Iyengar girl has children, many children if she can afford it, and Toni can afford it, she could marry off eight daughters and eight sons if she wanted it.But the mother’s life was not the life for Toni.Besides, to have a baby in the public eye, one needs a man for it, and Toni only has an on-again, off-again lover in the form of Captain America.Currently, it’s off-again, considering the big lug decided to break his brainwashed assassin bestie out of international custody and run away, which is why she’s walking up seven flights of stairs to an apartment in fucking Queens.She reaches the door she wants, only slightly out of breath, and knocks.A beautiful woman opens the door, long brown hair and wide, silver-rimmed glasses that make her bright blue eyes pop.“Holy shit,” she gasps and shuts the door.





	strikhedonia

**Author's Note:**

> This satisfies the "Platonic Soulmates" (W1) square of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019. 
> 
> strikhedonia: the pleasure of being able to say "to hell with it".

Toni doesn’t have children, not in the strictest sense. She has the bots, she has JARVIS, but her uterus has always been a dry thing – people look down on her for it, she knows – a good Iyengar girl has children, many children if she can afford it, and Toni can afford it, she could marry off eight daughters and eight sons if she wanted it.

But the mother’s life was not the life for Toni.

Besides, to have a baby in the public eye, one needs a man for it, and Toni only has an on-again, off-again lover in the form of Captain America.

Currently, it’s off-again, considering the big lug decided to break his brainwashed assassin bestie out of international custody and run away, which is why she’s walking up seven flights of stairs to an apartment in fucking Queens.

She reaches the door she wants, only slightly out of breath, and knocks.

A beautiful woman opens the door, long brown hair and wide, silver-rimmed glasses that make her bright blue eyes pop.

“Holy shit,” she gasps and shuts the door.

Toni’s stunned – it’s not the first time someone’s slammed the door in her face, but not so quickly and not with so much surprise.

Slowly, the door opens, fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch, until she can see the beautiful woman is peering through the crack.

“Oh, my God, I wasn’t hallucinating.”

Toni rocks back on her heels. “If you are, this is one fucked-up shared acid trip we’re having.”

The beautiful woman shakes her head, swinging the door open the whole way through. “I haven’t done acid since college,” she waves off.

“Neither have I, but in my line of work…” Toni trails off. “Well, you can probably imagine.”

“I can imagine,” the beautiful woman says, dryly. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m really confused about why Toni Stark is standing outside my apartment.”

“Uh, Peter, Peter Parker, does he live here, or did I, like, get the wrong address?”

The beautiful woman’s eyes widen. “Yeah, yeah, he does. Has he, has he done something? He’s a good boy, doesn’t miss a day of school, he’s part of the Academic Decathlon team at his school, I don’t know why Iron Woman wants to see him-”

“He’s not in any trouble, I promise,” Toni reassures and guesses, very quickly, that this woman isn’t aware of what her nephew does at night, dressed up as a spider. “This is, uh, this is less about Iron Woman and well, more about the… the Stark Industries Internship Program.”

The beautiful woman’s eyes widen. “The what?”

“My, uh, my company has an internship program and Peter applied,” Toni explains, quickly. “I just wanted to let him know he got it, he got the internship.”

_Krishna said that by telling an untruth for saving a life, one is not touched by sin_, she soothes herself.

The beautiful woman’s brow knits. “He didn’t even tell me he applied,” she says, almost affronted.

Toni shrugs. “I couldn’t really help you with that.”

She sighs. “Well, Peter’s not home, but he should be back soon. Why don’t you come in and wait, Ms Stark?”

“Oh, please,” Toni says, pleasantly. “Call me Toni.”

* * *

Twenty-six minutes later, a pot of coffee and four mint slices later, a boy with a head of dark brown hair, clutching a filthy DVD player with a backpack thrown over his shoulder, stumbles into the apartment.

“Hey, May,” Peter says, tiredly.

May winks at her, her eyes begging Toni, _let me have my fun._

“Mm, hey. How was school today?” May asks, voice bright.

“Okay,” Peter says, with all the vagueness of a teenager (had her father bothered to ask her how school was at Peter Parker’s age, she probably would’ve replied the same way, with a much colder tone). “This crazy car parked outside…”

Peter stops short when he sees Toni sitting beside his aunt.

His eyes are enormous in his head.

Honestly, it’s pretty adorable.

“Um,” Peter takes out his earphones. He takes a deep breath. “Okay, Iron Woman’s sitting in my apartment. I think I might be having a mental breakdown,” he says, half-heartedly.

The grin on Toni’s face freezes, turns jagged.

_Oh, oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me._

She blows out a breath between her teeth. “A teenager as my soulmate; what has this world come to?” she sighs.

On cue, Peter stills, eyes growing wide, if that were even possible.

May just stares between them.

“Wait, soulmate?” she says, her voice going high-pitched.

Toni winces. “Platonic, believe me when I say, platonic,” she insists, because if she had a kid and a forty-six year old chick who used to have very publicised orgies showed up and said that her kid was orgy chick’s soulmate, yeah, she might have to cut a bitch. “Okay, okay, this is okay, we can deal with this as adult…” she cautions a look at Peter. “…and almost adult.” She thrusts out a hand over the back of the couch. “Toni.”

Peter swallows; she watches his throat flex, and he takes her hand. “I’m-I’m-I’m Peter,” he says, nervously.

Peter shakes his head. “What are… what are you-what are you-what are you doing here?” he finally manages to get out. “And I mean, wow, you’re my soulmate, okay, okay.”

Toni makes her smile as gentle as possible (she’s never tried to do that for anyone before). “It’s about time we met. You've been getting my e-mails, right?” she pushes.

_Come on, kid, I kind of need you to not be oblivious right now._

Peter’s eyes widen; he cottons on. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, strongly.

“Right?”

“Regarding the…” Peter flounders, unsure of what to say.

Thankfully, May chimes in, right in this moment.

“You didn't tell me about the grant,” she reproaches.

Peter swallows. “About the grant,” he says, lightly.

“The September Foundation,” Toni interjects.

Peter nods. “Right.”

“Yeah, remember when you applied?” Toni soothes.

“Yeah.”

“I approved, so, now, we’re in business,” Toni says, sweetly.

May pouts. “You didn't tell me anything. What's up with that? You keeping secrets from me now?”

Peter sets his teeth to his bottom lip, biting but not tearing. “Why, I just, I just… I just know how much you love surprises, so I thought I would let you know…” he furrows his brow. “Anyway, what did I apply for?”

Toni grins with all her teeth. “That’s what I’m here to hash out.”

“Okay,” Peter exhales. “Hash, hash out, okay.”

Toni’s eyes flicker back to May. “It's so hard for me to believe that she's someone's aunt,” she says, coyly.

Why shouldn’t she fucking flirt, when her romantic soulmate would rather gallivant around the fucking world with his murder boyfriend than give her a fucking phone call?

May flushes but meets her eyes defiantly. “Yeah, well, we come in all shapes and sizes, you know?” she taunts.

“These mint slices are exceptional, and really, no egg?”

“No egg.”

“Let me just stop you there,” Peter interjects.

“Yeah?” Toni turns back to him.

Peter crosses his arms over his chest. “Is this grant, like, got money involved or whatever? No?”

_Oh, I like him, I like him already_.

“Yeah,” Toni says, quickly, because what the hell, she has the money.

“Yeah?” Peter’s eyes widen.

“It’s pretty well funded.”

“Wow,” Peter breathes.

Toni points at herself. “Kind of a billionaire, kid.” She turns to May. “Can I have 5 minutes with him?”

May shrugs. “Sure.”

* * *

Toni steps into Peter’s bedroom, in the middle of biting into a mint slice.

“Man, I got to get the recipe off her,” she mutters and bolts the door shut. She notices the collection of old computers lining Peter’s desk. “Whoa, what do we have here? Retro tech, huh? Thrift store? Salvation Army?” she tries.

Peter flushes. “Uh, the garbage, actually,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck.

Toni grows intrigued. “You're a dumpster diver.”

“Yeah, I was…” Peter trails off. He shakes his head. “Anyway, look, um, I definitely did not apply for your grant,” he says, quickly.

“No, no, me first,” Toni says, sternly.

“Okay.”

“Quick question of the rhetorical variety.” She pulls out her phone, projecting a video of Peter Parker in a red-blue onesie stopping a bus with his bare hands. “That's you, right?” she says, innocently.

Peter’s eyes widen and look away. “Um, no. What do you-What do you mean?” he stumbles.

“Yeah, look at you go.” She peers at the video, closely. “Wow! Nice catch. Three-thousand pounds, forty miles an hour. That's not easy. You got mad skills.”

Peter turns away. “That's all-That's all on YouTube, though, right? I mean, that's where you found that? Because you know that's all fake. It's all done on the computer,” he says, bravely.

Toni hums, humouring him.

“It's like that video. What is it?” Peter’s brow knits.

“You mean like those UFOs over Phoenix?” Toni taunts.

“Exactly,” Peter says, definitively.

Toni walks towards a door, grabbing a stick on her way, and taps the little hatch in the wall. The hatch gives away and the red-blue onesie falls out.

“What do we have here?” she says, delighted.

Peter lunges forward, snatching the onesie out of her hands and throwing it into the closet.

“Uh.,. that's a…”

“So,” Toni sighs. “You're the… Spider… ling. Crime-fighting Spider…” her brow knits. “You're Spider-Boy?”

Peter folds his arms, petulantly. “S-Spider-_Man_,” he says, defiantly.

Toni snorts. “Not in that onesie, you're not.”

“It’s not a onesie,” Peter snaps, just as Toni makes her way over to his open closet to fish out the suit. “I don't believe this.” Peter laughs and shakes his head. “I was actually having a real good day today, you know, Ms Stark. Didn't miss my train, this perfectly good DVD player was just sitting there and… Algebra test. Nailed it!”

Toni leans back. “Does anyone else know?” she asks, curiously.

Peter snorts. “Nobody.”

“Not even your… unusually attractive aunt?” Toni wonders out loud.

“No, no, no,” Peter says, quickly, face twisting like he finds the thought utterly unbearable. “No, no, if she knew, she would freak out. And when she freaks out, I freak out.” He waves off.

Toni searches his eyes, before sighing. “You know what I think is really cool? This webbing. That tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?” she asks, curiously.

Peter meets her eyes with no small amount of confidence. “I did.”

Toni flashes him a grin. “And climbing the walls? How do you do that? Cohesive gloves.”

“It’s a long story,” Peter exhales. “I was, uh…”

Toni picks up the Spider-Man goggles and peers through them. “Well, hell, can you even see in these?”

Peter snatches it right out of her hands, scowling furiously. “Yes, yes, I can! I can. I can-I can see in those. Okay? It's just that…” he sighs, sinking onto the bed, feet tucked underneath him. “When whatever happened, happened…” he trails off. “It's like my senses have been dialled to 11. There's way too much input, so… they just kinda help me focus.”

The look in his eyes, almost morose and uncertain, softens the harsh line of her cheekbones.

“You, kid, are in dire need of an upgrade,” she murmurs, peering at him carefully. “Systematic, top to bottom. Hundred-point restoration, which is why I’m here.”

Peter straightens from where he sits on the bed, almost as if standing at attention.

“Why are you doing this, Peter?” Toni asks, carefully, her voice unbearably soft. “I have to know. What’s your MO? A fourteen-year-old doesn’t do the things you do unless there’s a reason.”

“Because…”

Toni watches as he tangles his fingers together and fidgets.

“Because I’ve been me my whole life, and I’ve had these powers for six months,” Peter says, awkwardly.

Toni tempers her tongue – it would be easy to say something now, but the words on her thigh burn, just as she opens her mouth.

“I read books, I build computers… and-and, yeah. I would love to play football. But I couldn't then so I shouldn't now,” Peter says, shrugging.

“Because you’re different, and it wouldn’t be fair,” Toni says, kindly.

“Exactly.” Peter nods. “But I can't tell anybody that, so I'm not. When you can do the things that I can, but you don't… and then, the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”

Toni sucks in a deep breath, thinks of Steve’s pale, flashing eyes, the jut of his jaw when he plants his feet, and _of course, of fucking course._

Toni licks her lips. “So, you wanna look out for the little guy? You wanna do your part? Make the world a better place, all that, right?” she says, waving her hand.

“Yeah, yeah, just looking out…” he blows out a breath between his teeth. “for the little guy. That’s-that’s what it is.”

Toni nods to herself.

She remembers the little bio that FRIDAY had prepared for her – _Benjamin Parker, uncle, deceased as of four months ago, victim of a mugging._

She slowly walks over to Peter, whose leg is stretched out across the length of the bed. She eyes it, carefully.

“I'm gonna sit here, so you move the leg,” she advises, sternly.

Peter’s face flames and he moves his leg, so that Toni can sit on the edge of bed. She hesitantly raises her hand and it comes down on Peter’s shoulder, squeezing, despite the instinctive jolt of surprise that shudders right through the teenage boy.

“You got a passport?” Toni asks, curiously.

Peter frowns. “Uh, no. I don't even have a driver's license.”

Toni nods. “You ever been to Germany.”

“No,” Peter says, slowly.

Toni’s face splits into a grin. “Oh, you’ll love it.”

Peter’s eyes go enormous. “I can’t go to Germany!” he insists.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Exactly why not?”

“I got… homework,” Peter says, lamely.

Toni just stares at him for a moment, incredulously, and then, Peter’s face flames, realising what he just said, and he ducks his head, staring down at his lap.

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that,” she says, slowly.

“I’m-I’m being serious! I can't just drop out of school!” Peter insists.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Who said you’d be dropping out of school?” She sighs, a smile playing on the curve of her mouth. “I guess it might be a little dangerous. I should probably tell Aunt Hottie I'm taking you on a field trip.”

Just as she makes her way to the door, thick, viscous, gleaming webbing wraps around Toni’s hand, pinning it to the doorknob. She rounds on Peter, who stares at her defiantly.

“Don’t tell Aunt May,” he warns.

Toni’s grin is all teeth. “Alright, Spider-Man,” she says, careful and weighty, sharing an earnest look with her platonic teenage soulmate, a shuddering sort of stillness hanging in the air.

She should say something to him, address the words scrawled around her thigh – there are conversations that every soulmate pairing usually has, one where they address the dynamic between them, where they go from here, what they expect from the relationship etc., but Toni’s always been a master of avoidance, and now, with Ross looming over all of them like a dark, dangerous monster from a children’s book, she doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with Peter in a way that goes beyond Spider-Man.

“Get me out of this,” she says, sternly.

Peter flushes again, going blotchy pink, hurtling forwards. “Sorry, I'll get the…”

Toni just shakes her head.

* * *

A giant man knocks Peter out of the air and Toni lands on the ground, in front of her soulmate’s sprawled form, her lungs in her throat. She kneels beside him, touching his shoulder. The second she touches him, he reacts, kicking out, full of panic, until she’s able to still with gentle urging.

“It’s me, Peter, it’s just me.”

Peter’s eyes centre on her and she sees the realisation dawn. “Oh, oh, hi, Ms Stark,” he says, panting heavily.

“Hi, kid, you’re done.”

“No, wait, I can still-”

“You’re _done_,” Toni says, firmly.

“But, Ms Stark, let me just-”

“You’re done, or I’m telling Aunt May.”

Peter’s mouth shuts with audible smack and sinks back against the ground. “Okay, okay, I’m just gonna… gonna lie here-”

Toni hears the rush of wind and she looks up, seeing a jet soar off into the air.

“Rhodey, they’re getting away!” Toni shouts.

“On it!”

Rhodey goes off after them, Sam goes off after him, and Vision tries to knock Sam out of the air, turn him into a glider, ground him, but he misses, his arms wrapped around a fallen Wanda in his lap, and Rhodey falls.

Rhodey falls, and Toni’s hand is the last thing to leave Peter, when she throws herself to catch him before he hits the ground.

But he hits the ground, and when Toni lands beside him, there’s a line of blood running from his nose that makes her heart stop momentarily.

Sam lands beside her, achingly sorry, and she doesn’t care, she doesn’t _care_, all she cares about is Rhodey, Rhodey, who’s loved her all these years, who’s loved her through everything, who would fight with her any day and every day, so her repulsor knocks him off his feet instead.

* * *

Rhodey is paralysed from the waist down, undergoing multiple surgeries just to fix the damage done, and Natasha leaves, after one vicious dig at Toni’s ego, like she has anything to fucking whinge about after assaulting a fucking king, but okay, Toni’s been taking the ego digs all her life and she’ll take one fucking more if it’ll make everyone else around her feel better (it’s not ego, it’s not arrogance, she’s smart, she’s smarter than everyone else fucking around her, and that’s fucking _fact_).

So, she goes off to Siberia on her own.

She faces off against Steve, and because she loves him, loves him so much, when she sees him, she throws herself into his arms, and Steve, he holds her hard enough to bruise, pressing his mouth against her hair, sweat-damp and in desperate need of a wash, and then, finally her mouth, hard and hard and careless and so messy.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to fight you,” she mutters against the hollow of his throat.

“I know, I know, honey, I know,” Steve soothes. “You’re here now, you’re here now, and that’s all that matters. We’ll do this together, yeah?”

“Yeah, together.”

And then, she sees the video.

God, it’s like she dies then and there.

And then, she turns on them, her fucking soulmate and his best friend, realising that her mother watched as this monster made her a fucking widow and died in pain, died in tears, and she remembers washing their corpses, dissolving into a puddle of tears on cold, hard, sterile floor, remembers burning their bodies, even if she shouldn’t have (her mother wouldn’t have liked it – girls don’t do that, girls don’t burn the bodies, girls _don’t_, but who else was there?), remembers washing the house, remembers sitting a shuddering sort of stillness until the thirteenth day passed, and then, it was like she was resurrected, body anew.

And this monster killed them, took them away from her.

And Steve knew; he knew, he knew this whole time how they died, who did it, and he protected the monster, and Toni thinks, _of course, he did, of course, he fucking protected him, what am I compared to Bucky Barnes?_

Toni knows Steve has Bucky’s words on his shoulder, just by the nape of his neck; she’d seen it the first time she’d gotten his shirt off, and his face had crumpled so quickly, so painfully, that her chest had ached for him. She’d kissed all the sadness out of his eyes, perched on his lap, and he’d held her so gently, like she might shatter in his arms, and she thought, _I love him, I actually fucking love him_.

So, Toni had thought she might’ve been just as worthy of Steve, of his fucking empathy, after all these years, after her words looping around his ribcage.

She was mistaken.

Steve had made his priorities very fucking clear.

It ends in a Siberian bunker, Steve crouched on top of her, slamming the shield her father made for him down on her, and for a brief second, she thinks she’ll become a statistic (when a woman dies, they point first at her soulmates and then at everyone else, and seven times out of ten, one of her soulmates did it), that Steve will bring that shield down on her neck and separate her head from her shoulders, and then, it slams down on her arc reactor instead.

Somehow, that’s worse.

It’s worse because there was a time when Steve had laid down with her in a bed and traced the lines of the arc reactor, head pillowed on her breast, almost like he worshipped her, and told her how strong her heart was, how brave she was, how beautiful she was, and he’s broken her heart so easily, quite literally.

And he leaves her there, alone and hurt and maimed.

* * *

Toni trudges her way back to the hotel room in Berlin.

The first thing she does is clean herself.

She is poisoned from death, and so, she must clean herself.

Steve is alive somewhere; he breathes and eats and sleeps and lives somewhere, but he is dead to her, and so, she cleans herself.

When she returns to the Compound, she’ll wash it from top to bottom, and it will be like Steve’s body is burned, and maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to breathe easy again.

That’s a lie, she won’t.

When she’s done, when she’s sitting in front of her mirror, she has a sudden idea and she grabs the phone lying on the bedside table.

The room service she orders is completely and utterly excessive and lacto-vegetarian, considering how much she’s paying for the three rooms: soup and salad and sushi and sake and fresh fruit and pastries and wine and cheesy, vegetarian pizza and veggie burgers and truffle-parmesan pasta and flatbread and dim sum and gourmet chocolate and sandwiches and spring rolls and mango with sticky rice.

“I… might have gone overboard,” she sighs.

She storms out of her suite, coming to the door on the other side of the corridor, rapping on it.

Peter opens the door on the other side.

“Where’s Happy?” she asks, peering over his shoulder.

“He went out,” Peter shrugs, practically bouncing on his feet. “Said something about life being too short.”

Toni growls under her breath. _Of fucking course._

“Okay, have you eaten?” she demands.

“Yeah, Happy bought us burgers through room service.”

Like on cue, as if it knew they were talking about it, Peter’s stomach rumbles.

His face flames.

“You’re cute. I have food. Come in and eat it all.”

She rounds on her feet and saunters back into her suite.

Peter promptly follows her in.

* * *

“So, what’s with the food?” Peter asks, curiously, taking a bite into his avocado and spicy tofu roll.

“I eat my feelings,” Toni says, flatly, digging into her fried, hand-pulled noodles with bok choy and tomato and chilli.

Peter pauses. “Okay, are you joking?”

Toni cracks a smile. “When in doubt, I’m joking,” she reassures.

“I didn’t know you were a vegetarian,” Peter says, slowly. “How long…?”

“Since birth,” Toni says, casually.

Peter blinks at her.

“It’s because of my religion.”

“I didn’t know you were religious.”

Toni laughs. “There are parts of my personality that are not appropriate for public consumption.”

Peter’s brow knits. “Like your dietary requirements and your religion?” he says, confused.

“Exactly. You might have noticed that I’m not exactly America’s perfect image of a billionaire? I’m a little too brown and a little too female,” she teases.

That was an old wound that had healed many years ago; there are newer ones she tends to now, and American society’s disappointment in her is definitely not one of them.

“That’s fucked up,” Peter says, bluntly, and his face flames, realising what he said.

“Word,” Toni says, pointing the edge of her fork at him.

Peter shakes his head. “So, I know some Indian people eat meat; is that like a different sect of the religion or…?”

Toni nods. “Basically. Where I come from in India, the community that my family belongs to, we don’t eat any meat, no chicken, no fish, no eggs. Technically, we’re not supposed to eat onion and garlic either, but fuck that noise, I love garlic.”

“Is it cause cows are like God?” Peter asks, curiously.

“Cows aren’t like God, but they are sacred,” Toni explains.

“You learn something new every day,” Peter mutters under his breath. “So, uh, what does your religion say about platonic soulmates?”

“Smooth,” she teases.

Peter’s flush heightens.

“There are a number of people in my religion who had platonic soulmates: Krishna and Sudama, Krishna and Draupadi, Karna and Duryodhana. It’s a beautiful thing,” she says, wistfully. “Frankly, I never thought I’d meet you.”

“Really?”

“Well, I’m forty-six, kid,” Toni points out. “If I was going to meet you, I thought I might’ve done it already.”

“Oh,” Peter says, lamely. “We met, you know, before all of this.”

Toni cocks her head.

“I was, uh, at the Stark Expo?” Peter explains, scratching the back of his head. “I was the little kid in the Iron Woman helmet and the Hammer drone landed in front of me, thinking I was you-”

“-and I landed behind you,” she says, brow drawing in. “I shot the drone and flew off. I said-”

“Nice work, kid,” Peter says, quietly.

“Those are my words on you?”

“Yeah.”

Toni frowns. “Why didn’t you, uh, ever reach out? Stark Expo was six years ago. You could’ve contacted me, we could’ve met earlier-”

“I thought you might think I was lying?” Peter shrugs.

Toni goes cotton-candy soft.

“I know you had issues with people lying about your words in the past, and I didn’t want… I didn’t want you to think I was one of them. Plus, I was still a kid, and I was worried that I might be too…” he waves his hands. “…extra for you?”

“You wouldn’t have been,” Toni says, infinitely gentle. “Extra.”

Peter offers her a smile, and her lungs squeeze a little too tight.

“So, tell me, Parker, you got a romantic soulmate?” she says, waggling her eyebrows.

Peter’s skin goes a blotchy pink from hairline to collar. “Yeah,” he clears her throat. “Yeah, I do. Her name’s MJ. She’s, uh, she’s pretty cool, incredibly savage.”

“I’d love to meet her,” she offers. She frowns. “Unless that’s weird? I think that might be weird? I know we just met and I’m like more than three times your age. It’s weird that I want to meet your girlfriend, right?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t care, and I don’t think she would either,” he muses. “Maybe, uh, maybe we could all have dinner one night?” he says, hesitantly, like he’s afraid of crushing dejection (she wonders how many times she had that same look with Howard, how many times she begged – Peter shouldn’t ever have to beg for anything from her). “You, me, MJ, May, and of course, your, uh, your romantic soulmate too! I’d love to meet him or her or them?”

Toni’s grin freezes, because _god, why didn’t I realise he’d ask me about fucking Rogers when I just teased him about his girlfriend?_

“Ms Stark,” Peter says, cautiously, worriedly, when she doesn’t answer.

“Toni,” she says, immediately. “You should call me Toni. I mean, we are soulmates, so, yeah, you should call me Toni. That’s not inappropriate at all.”

“Are you sure?” Peter asks, uneasily, but bright-eyed, like he never thought he’d ever get a chance to call her by her first name.

“Yeah,” she blows out a breath between her teeth, leaning back against the headboard. “You should definitely call me Toni.”

Peter’s face flames again. “Okay, uh, cool, Toni, then,” he says, half-heartedly. “Sorry, uh, did I overstep, you know, asking you about your romantic soulmate?”

“No, Peter,” Toni says, her voice unbearably soft, because she doesn’t ever want him to look at her and think he is not allowed to ask her anything or say anything to her (her father was like that, and she is not her father, she has never been her father). “No, you didn’t overstep at all.”

She tilts her arm, rolling up the sleeve of her night shirt, so he can see the words on the inside of her elbow.

_I must still be in the ice_.

Peter stares at it for a moment, and then, realisation dawns.

“Captain America is your soulmate,” he says, awed.

Toni’s mouth twists, sourly. “That he is,” she says, her voice flat, dead.

Hearing her words, he looks at her, eyes huge in his face. “Sorry, Ms Stark-sorry, _Toni_-”

“Shit happened,” she says, blunt but gentle.

“You guys were fighting,” Peter says, quietly.

“We weren’t supposed to be, but it became something it shouldn’t have,” Toni says, wearily, pinching the bridge of her nose. “And then, Siberia…” she trails off.

“That’s where you went, after?” Peter asks.

Toni nods. “I got a tip that Rogers and Barnes were going to Siberia to stop a bunch of other super soldiers from, I guess, destroying the world? I don’t know much more, because no one was willing to tell me anything else,” she says, bitterly. “When I got there, there was a video: December 16, 1991.”

“What’s that?”

“The day my parents died,” Toni explains. “It turns out that the Winter Soldier murdered them for HYDRA.”

“And there was a video…” Peter trails off, his expression turning horrified. “Oh, my God,” he breathes.

“Exactly. Suffice to say, I didn’t react well, especially after I found out that Rogers knew, for two years, and didn’t say anything,” she says, quietly, and then shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be unloading this stuff on you, it’s not appropriate-”

“What a dick,” Peter says, bluntly.

Toni huffs out a laugh. “I thought you liked him,” she points out.

“I did, but parents are sacred. You don’t… you don’t mess with parents,” Peter says, his eyes dark and full of grief.

Toni feels her lungs squeeze in tight, and she pats him on the hand. “Enough with all this sad talk. Drink your milk now, and you should probably go to bed.”

“I don’t want any,” Peter says, glumly.

Toni sighs. “If you don’t drink the milk, cows will cry.”

Peter stares at her, incredulously.

Toni flushes. “Sorry, my mum used to say that when I was a kid…” she rubs the back of her neck. “Okay, this is making me feel really awkward.”

Peter jumps to his feet. “Yeah, me too.”

“Talk tomorrow?”

Peter’s eyes are awash with relief. “God, yes.”

* * *

Months later, when the Rogues come back to America, and they return to the Compound, Peter doesn’t hold back with Steve during training. On one occasion, Toni thinks he breaks the super soldier’s collarbone and pretends he just misjudged his landing.

Toni scolds him for that, citing unprofessionalism as a reason, and promptly takes him on a trip to Legoland Billund.

Peter definitely drinks the milk on this trip, and no cows cry.

Toni considers this a win.


End file.
